Casa Hogar:
Computer Center for Children of Lurin
In 2003, Ananda Foundation provided a computer center for children of Casa Hogar, an orphanage in Lurin, outside of Lima. The computer center was fitted with six new computers and software. Casa Hogar provides shelter, food, medical care, and a loving family environment for over seventy children from poor backgrounds.
Special Education Teacher for Mentally Challenged Students
Casa Hogar Juan Pablo II, is dedicated to providing their children with the best educational opportunities available. For this reason on April 15, 2003, we established a special education classroom. Previously, children of Casa Hogar with learning or attention disabilities were forced to attend a special education school that services were far from satisfactory or attended the local elementary school that averages classrooms of fifty students.
Bertha is a special education teacher at Casa Hogar Juan Pablo II. She makes it possible for students requiring individualized attention to excel by creating an environment that caters to their specific needs. These students continue to show success and growth in this new classroom each day.
When the classroom was first opened, the students could neither read nor write, now they can read, write, and recognize symbols. There are four basic subject areas taught in the special education room. Math classes work with basic adding, subtracting, and dominating their multiplication and division tables. Language classes work on memorizing and the application of basic reading and writing skills. Art classes still work on basic projects like coloring inside the lines, making cards, gluing, etc. PE classes are up to normal speed, with other kids their age.
Bertha has five students and is hoping to expand her classroom. She adapts each lesson the capacity and present education of the children, and thus providing each child with necessary attention that will prove to remedy their present education deficiencies and develop as quickly as possible. In addition to an individualized teaching environment, summer school has helped these students stay focused and on track for the next school year. She also works directly with the public special education program in town to reference curriculum standards, talking with the public school’s teachers.
In 2004, Ananda Foundation provided Casa Hogar with a grant to fund Bertha's teaching.
(2004) Quechua'chaka Children's Fund. Quechua’chaka. This grant from Ananda Foundation provided for uniforms and library books for 300 children from the isolated Andean village communities of Hunchiri and Percardo.
(2004-Current) Sopa Del Dia. Calca, Sacred Valley
This project overseen by The Chandler Sky Foundation provides a free lunch meal to sixty children from the community surrounding the orphanage Casa De Milagros or “House of Miracles.” In addition to the meal, and in an effort to reduce malnourishment, a community garden is maintained by villagers who participate in nonformal education emphasizing nutritional awareness and medicinal application of plants grown in the garden. Ananda Foundation gave a grant to sponsor the soup kitchen and community garden..
Project Goals Include:
- Educate nutrition ; so that the community understands why they are eating what they are eating and the benefits it provides for human well-being. Teaching the methods of preparing nutritious meals hygienically in their own homes. When combined with education of Organic Gardening (No.4) they are equipped with the knowledge to achieve sustainable nutrition.
- Providing an Organic Garden ; that provides organic ingredients for the Soup Kitchen.
- Education of Organic Gardening ; to promote self sufficient means by which the community can provide organic ingredients for themselves (in their own homes or in the Communal Garden) in the future.
- More for less ; to demonstrate that the quality of the food is a priority over quantity. That there are efficient means by which to provide the human body with the essential nutrients it needs without the assumed high costs.
- Build Cooperation ; provide an experience of cooperation in the community whereby a successful project exemplifies the possibilities that can be achieved by a group of people working together.
- Build Trust ; for the community to learn to trust one another.
- Springboard to future projects in Saccllo ; using the success of the Soup Kitchen to provide self esteem, trust and cooperation to the community so that they can enter new projects with increased confidence.
(2005) Health Education and Water Sanitation for Villagers of the Manu Rainforest, Amazon
Ananda Foundation provided a grant for the operational support of a health education and clean water outreach program. This project led by two women; nurse practicioner Maria and Nancy Santullo (director of the ngo House of the Children) is helping the native community of Saint Rose of Huacarial in the Manu Rain Forest of the Southeastern Peruvian Amazon.
The health of Huacaria’s children is poor due to contaminated water supply, poor sanitary and hygienic conditions, lack of culturally appropriate health education, and flu viruses brought in from outsiders, mainly tourists . Varying degrees of malnutrition, diarrhea, chronic respiratory infections, intestinal parasites, fungal infections, anemia, protein and vitamin deficiencies, and dental decay are the leading causes of health problems among children in Huacaria. The parasite problem is critical and children and adults often vomit out parasites after receiving anti-parasite treatment.
Inhabitants in Huacaria are slowly steering away from using traditional indigenous plant medicine and only go to the local health post when their health or the health of their children reaches a critical state. They do not have confidence in the medical professionals or the medical system currently available to them.
A lack of culturally and environmentally appropriate health, hygiene, nutrition and general bilingual education from local medical professionals to indigenous communities is a serious overall problem. The troublesome reality that community members are often not using their traditional indigenous plant medicine is perpetuating a decline in health among the children and families throughout the village. In order for the health of the community to improve, better communication between health care professionals and community members must be established. Mutual trust and cultural sensitivity has to develop, as well as a communal revival of using traditional plant medicine.
House of the Children is addressing these issues with the following strategies:
Community Networking: Through targeted programs, co-developed with the community, the children and families of Huacaria are given an opportunity to strengthen their health care while adapting to the social and environmental change now occurring Manu.
Safe drinking water, through low tech gravity flow water systems which use slow sand filtration and chlorine is now in place. Double sides utility sinks made of stone w/ underground drainage trenches to dispose of gray water properly have been built at each village home large enough to accommodate the growth of each family and the village at large.
We train the village water committee and community members, including the youth water committee in the primary school, to be responsible for the building and upkeep of the sanitary installations and of the gravity flow water systems. We project sanitation improvement in 2006 with the building of bathrooms and showers at the village school house.
Targeted multilingual health and hygiene education and programming specifically directed toward improving the most basic health, hygienic and sanitary practices within the community.
Weekly classes at the village schoolhouse for the school aged children of Huacaria include personal hygiene, oral hygiene/prevention, daily nutrition, how actions effect the environment, medicinal plants that heal, and an “applied biology lab” on the negative health effect of unseen bacteria.
Bi-monthly applied learning classes for mothers include; improving their overall health and that of their families by personal hygiene, sanitation, nutrition, pre-natal and post-natal care, medicinal plants and indigenous medicines and the care and maintenance of their homes.
HOTC’s two-year partnership with the Regional Health Ministry and the hospital of Pilcopata, has established periodic, routine medical examinations including height, weight, blood work, parasite levels, and oral hygiene/dental repair for all preschool and school aged children. This year in April, we will do hepatitis b testing.
HOTC's dental program for children is a first of its kind in an indigenous community in Manu. The teeth of all school aged children are being repaired, whereas normally the children’s teeth would reach a critical state and then have to be pulled. These basic services will also serve to monitor the affects of the improved water and sanitation conditions in the village.
HOTC will create a regional bilingual health and hygiene poster campaign (when funding permits) using local children on the positive health effects of daily hygiene. These posters will be displayed throughout Huacaria, the local hospitals, surrounding local pueblos and indigenous communities.
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